Hold the raisins

Blechh.

Slate's Jurisprudence blogger Arin Greenwood goes test-kitchen to investigate whether "Nutraloaf" violates the 8th Amendment.

Given her culinary account -

"I mixed canned spinach in with baked beans, tomato paste, margarine, applesauce, bread crumbs, and garlic powder. Together the ingredients became a thick, odorous, brown paste, which I spread into a loaf pan and put in the oven."

- I'm inclined to think yes.

The White House gets a bump from Michelle

The Jackie O. comparisons might be overblown, but in seven years of Oscar de la Renta, Laura Bush never caused a run on his ready-to-wear line...

Call me Laura Ingraham

A blogosphere debate, abridged:
Foxnews.com says that viewing hardcore pornography is akin to cheating. Libertarian blogginghead says that's absurd. The Atlantic bloggers weigh in - Ross Douthat says that actually it's not so far-fetched here, here, and here, and Andrew Sullivan says Ross is wrong here.

I share twenty minutes worth of links because I'm suprised to find myself so aligned with the conservative argument here. Pornography's made for strange pairings on the far right and far left for decades, and I've always been sympathetic to the feminist case against an industry that, on the whole, has been so exploitative of women, but I'm usually content to agree to live and let live.

But Ross' point that watching pornography (meaning of the hardcore variety, not fuzzily-lit Playboy pictures) doesn't equate to cheating but exists on the same continuum seems almost knee-jerk to me. He explains:

"I don't think all that many spouses would be inclined to forgive their husbands (or wives) if they explained that they only liked to watch the prostitute they'd hired. And hard-core porn, in turn, is nothing more than an indirect way of paying someone to fulfill the same sort of voyeuristic fantasies: It's prostitution in all but name, filtered through middlemen, magazine editors, and high-speed internet connections."

The response, at least from one corner, is pretty harsh - the assumption being that only a Puritan with Stone-Age views about sex could see this connection. So here I sit, trying to quell my inner Wendy Shalit, and wondering when desiring a partner's sexual attention undivided by videorecorded gang-bangs became the exclusive province of repressed conservatives?

"Evil laugh preferred."

time-wasting find of the day: best of Craiglist.

my favorite:

Nemesis required. 6-month project with possibilty to extend

---

Date: 2008-05-07, 2:49PM PDT


I've been trying to think of ways to spice up my life. I'm 35 years old, happily married with two kids and I have a good job in insurance. But somethings missing. I feel like I'm old before my time. I need to inject some excitement into my daily routine through my arm before its too late. I need a challenge, something to get the adrenaline pumping again. An addiction would be nice, but, in short, I need a nemesis. I'm willing to pay $350 up front for you services as an arch enemy over the next six months. Nothing crazy. Steal my parking space, knock my coffee over, trip me when Im running to catch the BART and occasionaly whisper in my ear, "Ahha, we meet again". That kind of thing. Just keep me on my toes. Complacency will be the death of me. You need to have an evil streak and be blessed with innate guile and cunning. You should also be adept at inconsicuous pursuit. Evil laugh preferred. Send me a photo and a brief explanation why you would be a good nemesis.

British accent preferred.

The "all-black issue"

An interest-piquing feature in NYT today on the upcoming issue of Italian Vogue, featuring the work of photographer Steven Meisel:

"For the July issue of Italian Vogue, Mr. Meisel has photographed only black models. In a reverse of the general pattern of fashion magazines, all the faces are black, and all the feature topics are related to black women in the arts and entertainment."

I'm of a conflicted mind here: certainly celebrating a challenge to the status quo (near exclusive whiteness) of the fashion industry, but something about the black-only issue seems amiss. Like it's in the vein of "separate but equal," giving these women their own issue to make up for their exclusion the rest of the year (although Italian Vogue's editor does sound more progressive than her American counterparts in the article.) Or, at worst, even fetishization - "all the faces are black"?

Is the goal of a seamlessly diverse fashion world really so far-fetched? And then we could just get back to focusing on how they're all too skinny.

some important things you should know about Barack Obama

Or, "an email I won't be getting from my grandma."

Banana bummer

Here's a downer:

The author of "Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World" says in today's NYT that bananas could soon "slip out of reach" as a result of a imminent banana-destroying fungus approaching the Latin American crop with intent to kill.

And not only, according to Mssr. Koeppel, has the Breakfast Fruit of Champions deccimated the sociopolitics of the continent, but it's not even as delicious as the bananas our great-grandparents ate!

This is seriously terrible.

Good for business

Love this quick hit on Portfolio, "Cashing in on Same-Sex Wedding Bells," about the boon to the CA wedding and tourism industries resulting from the May 15 decision. Sort of a common theme for coverage today, as same-sex wedding season officially begins - above, today's full-page Macy's "congratulations, and buy our flatware!" ad in the LA Times. Also this gem in the same paper: "gay marriage ruling boosts firm that sells interchangeable figures for wedding cakes."

So the Portfolio piece parses the UCLA Law Williams' Institute study about the nature of this windfall (the one being referenced everywhere). The upshot:

"The Institute thinks same-sex marriage should generate 2,200 jobs in California, bring in $8 million in marriage-license fees, and increase sales and occupancy tax revenues by $55 million. A 2005 study showed that if same-sex marriage was legalized nationally, the wedding industry could generate another $2 billion annually."

State revenue, job creation and equality? Cheers!

You heard it here first: gay weddings. The clear solution to low consumer confidence and economic doldrums.

"He always asked the question we hoped he wouldn't"

The Hotline ran a moving tribute to Tim Russert today, rounding up recollections and reflections from all corners of this city (including the above, from Mitch McConnell, which I imagine to be the kind of high praise the guy would have loved.)

I'm struck by the timing of this loss, right before Father's Day - of a man so devoted and so frequently given to mentioning his own family that my first thought was of Big Russ and of Russert's son my age. And so closely associated in my mind with my own father that my second thought was whether Dad had heard the news.

If it was Sunday, it was in fact Meet the Press in my house, as it had been for my dad and his dad. By college, it was just me watching - my father had grown exhausted, he said, with Russert's "gotcha" line of questioning- but for awhile it was a small ritual shared between the two of us while the other half of the family slept. And while Russert's style could be tedious at times (cue his eye-roll-inducing insistence that Clinton properly pronounce Dmitry Medvedev's last name at an April Democratic debate), I can no more imagine this 2008 election without his pointed interrogations than I could without my dad's grousing about Obama's anticipated tax-and-spendism.

And here's a confession that I'd wager isn't unique among the more ambitious of our generation - for as long as I've been envisioning my Senate campaign (and I am now, for the record, in my second term of that daydream), whenever I imagined myself making compelling arguments and graceful rebuttals on the Sunday morning talk programs, it was always, but always, Tim Russert on the other side of the table.

No small thing to say that he will be missed.

"A technical requirement invites a technical solution"

I was horrified to see a header on Slate trumpeting the case for virginity-restoration surgery, but as it turns out, Human Nature columnist William Saletan not only expresses the requisite disgust for hymen-fetishizing fundementalists, but makes the surprisingly subversive (maybe even feminist?) argument for cheap, legal "virginity restoration" surgery.

"Recount" redux?

Marc Ambinder muses on a not-as-unlikely-as-you'd-think possibility.